Shards of Hope

Chapter 69

BLAKE WASN’T AN idiot; he understood he was a threat. That was why he came three hours early to the rendezvous location and set up a hidden surveillance post. The individual who arrived at the spot at the exact time they’d agreed upon immediately eliminated his concerns.

Walking out onto the pathway hidden in a mostly forgotten part of Central Park, he said, “I didn’t expect you to turn up yourself.” Their being seen together could bring down his reluctant ally’s entire house of cards.

“When something needs to be done, it’s better to do it yourself.” A glance at a sleek silver timepiece that, until then, had been hidden under the battered gray sleeve of the hooded sweatshirt that his “savior” wore with the hood pulled up, mirrored sunglasses obscuring a highly recognizable face. “You’re ready?”

“Yes.” Amin’s team was breathing down his neck. Blake had known, walking into the park, that if he had to walk back out, he was dead. “I’m pretty sure the squad’s surrounded the park within a one-block radius.”

“No matter.” Hands shoved into the sweatshirt’s large front pocket in the way of young humans and changelings, his ally began to move. “I have a vehicle parked in a bay used by maintenance crews. It has the city markings and we can take it directly to the heliport.”

Planning and intelligence, Blake thought. Perhaps a little too much planning. “I’ll drive.” He wasn’t about to be driven to the slaughter.

“Suit yourself.”

“You realize I could be an asset?”

“Of course I do. Why else would I be here?”

Because he’d threatened blackmail. Blake didn’t speak the words aloud and, well aware he was with someone as dangerous as an Arrow, watched for guns, for injectors, for lethal backup. The one thing he didn’t watch for was his own arrogance. He thought he was safe behind the wheel of the vehicle. He never felt the toxin that entered through the skin of his palms when he put them on the steering wheel.

Leaving him in the stolen city truck, the other party got out on sneakered feet. It took three minutes to walk to a well-trafficked part of the park and blend into a group of youths who eventually flowed out onto the streets. A pity to discard the Arrow but he’d proven himself an unstable threat; with him dead, there was no risk of premature exposure.

The next stage of the plan could be put safely into operation.